Category Archives: News

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Acts 2:42

One of the things the young church devoted themselves to was fellowship. Fellowship means holding all things in common – in other words, sharing together. They began to know and to love one another. Here are 3,000 people suddenly added to a little band of twenty. Most of them probably were strangers before this time. Many of them had come from other parts of the world into Jerusalem for that occasion. They did not know each other. But now they are one in Christ, and they begin to love each other and start to talk to each other, to find out what each other has been thinking and how each has been reacting, and to share their problems and burdens and needs, to talk about these together and pray together about them. There was a wonderful sense of community, of commonality, of belonging to each other.

Acts 2:17-19 In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke.

God’s Spirit works in every believer. He doesn’t limit Himself to pastors and missionaries. If you’ve received Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, then residing within you is the same great power that raised Christ from the dead. (See Rom. 8:11.)

The Holy Spirit creates Godly character in all who follow the Lord.

The fruit of the Spirit is the character and conduct the Holy Spirit produces in believers (Gal. 5:22-23). These are qualities that we can’t generate consistently on our own. Especially in this season, the most powerful message we can give isn’t a testimony or sermon; it’s the life we live when the pressure is on, temptation is tremendous, or we are buried under an avalanche of problems.

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever (Psalm 107:1).

This is the recurrent theme of Psalm 107. The psalmist speaks of the steadfast love of God. In Hebrew, the word means an eager and ardent desire and refers to the fact that God’s love never gives up. We sing about it in the hymn,

O Love that wilt not let me go, I rest my weary soul in Thee.

The thing that finally gets to us, breaks the back of our rebellion, and sets us free from our emotional hang-ups is the unqualified love of God, which never lets us go. We might use a term that is more easily understood in our day. Instead of steadfast love, read unqualified acceptance. That is what God’s love does. It accepts us without reserve.

The harvest is plentiful and the workers are few! That statement has held true for well over 2000 years since it was stated by Jesus Christ as he was offering encouragement to his followers to take the message of good news to the world.

Here is what Jesus said in Luke 10, 2 He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. 3 Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. 4 Do not take a purse or bag or sandals; and do not greet anyone on the road.

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see… And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. Hebrews 11:1, 6

In Hebrews there is an element which is regarded as essential to the Christian life, and that is faith. It is what makes the Christian different from the non-Christian. Henry David Thoreau, once said, “If I seem to walk out of step with others, it is because I am listening to another drum beat. That is an exact description of faith: Christians walk as though listening to another drum beat.

This chapter centers on what faith is. Faith is greatly misunderstood and there are many peculiar ideas of what it is. Faith is not positive thinking. Faith is not a hunch that is followed.

Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. Acts 20:28

The primary responsibility of an elder or pastor is to teach the Scriptures, to feed the flock. If he is not doing that, he is failing in his job, miserably. It is the truth that changes people. If the Scriptures are not being taught then people are not being changed. They are struggling in their own futile ways and nothing is being accomplished. So the primary job of elders and pastors is to set the whole counsel of God before the people.

On the road of life, a believer’s pathway is established or ordered by the Lord. The emphasis here is on the fact that it is the steps of a “good” man that are ordered by God. If we will keep short accounts with God (confessing and repenting as soon as we stumble) and stay surrendered to His will (His Lordship over our lives), then His guarantee is that He will keep us headed in the right direction.

“When a person listens to you, that person is really listening to me. But when a person refuses to accept you, that person is really refusing to accept me. And when a person refuses to accept me, he is refusing to accept the One (God) that sent me.”

1 He summoned the Twelve and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases,

2 and he sent them to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal [the sick].

3 He said to them, “Take nothing for the journey, neither walking stick, nor sack, nor food, nor money, and let no one take a second tunic.

4 Whatever house you enter, stay there and leave from there.

5 And as for those who do not welcome you, when you leave that town, shake the dust from your feet in testimony against them.”

6 Then they set out and went from village to village proclaiming the good news and curing diseases everywhere.

Jesus called the Twelve – these are the disciples that eventually became the Apostles; these are the men that shared the Last Supper with Him. On this occasion He gave them the power an authority that He had been using to cast out demons and to cure illnesses. On receiving this power they really did go throughout the countryside curing the sick and casting out demons.